


Love Is a Promise

by Es_Aitch



Series: Twelfth Doctor One Shots  Series 9 [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Audio 050: Zagreus, Gen, Post - "Before the Flood"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 04:11:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4989700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Es_Aitch/pseuds/Es_Aitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anyone who knows my writing knows I’m much more interested in what happens between episodes than during them.  So, this picks up as part of the conversation Doctor and Clara had at the end of “Before the Flood.”  I also reference and quote the 8th Doctor audio “Zagreus” I make no apologies!  And of course, this might turn completely AU by the end of the season, but what can you do?</p><p>Spoilers for all of Doctor Who through "Before the Flood"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Is a Promise

Clara stared at the Doctor for a long moment, her brown eyes doing that expanding thing he hates. She was trying to wrap her head around the fact that the Doctor died, but didn’t die. She just couldn’t comprehend it. “But you said you would die, you were certain of it. _This_ you. This you was going to die.”

“Well, there is another possibility.”

Clara was very confused now. “What do you mean?”

“Well, being caught in my own time stream, it’s possible that the first version of me did die at some point. That version of me did become a ghost and our time streams never caught up like I thought they had.”

“That would be good, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t want two of you running around. One of you is trouble enough.”

Clara smiled to show she was teasing. He shrugged and set the TARDIS in hover mode. Not knowing how to react to the Doctor’s silence, Clara realised that she really hated it when the Doctor was silent. She had a desperate need to fill it. “So where are we going next? I’d love to see an expanding star.”

The Doctor remained silent for a long time. Finally he sighed and looked at Clara realising that he had to talk with her. Properly and now. “How do you define love?”

Clara was taken aback. “Sorry? What?”

“Love, Clara. How do you define it?”

She paused, not really knowing where this conversation was going. “It’s like you said. It’s a promise.”

“No.”

“No? But you said…”

“That’s how _I_ define it. I’m asking how _you_ define it.”

She was not entirely sure where this was going, but she was getting more worried by the second. She made her way around the console, to put space between them. “Doctor, what is this really about?”

“Answer the question, Clara. How do you define love?”

She was quiet for a long moment. The Doctor moved closer to her. He was not trying to chase her, but he did not want her running away from this either. She looked up and met his eyes. She thought about her last words to Danny about how she told him the words ‘I love you’ were his now. “It’s a gift. It’s what I gave to Danny. It's caring for somebody more than you do yourself.”

Each phrase, she spoke faster, as if she was trying to find the right words that would hold off the Doctor’s onslaught. The Doctor nodded. “The TARDIS would agree. ‘Blind, heedless love,’ she once called it.”

That had been a rough time – when they had both been infected by Anti-Time. It was strange how certain memories came back at the least opportune moments. “If that’s what love is: a gift, a promise, setting someone else before yourself… then why did you use it as blackmail?”

Clara backed away from the console, startled by his words. “What? But I didn’t. I never…”

“Oh but you _did_ , Clara. After telling me that you didn’t care about certain aspects of my life that I do care about, you said, ‘If you love me in any way, you'll come back.’ Did you really think that was necessary? I told you once that betraying me wouldn’t make a difference in my wanting to help you. So why do you insist on testing that?”

Clara’s eyes started to water.

“Stop that with the eyes! I’m trying to have a serious conversation here and I can’t even look at you when you’re like that!”

He paused for a moment giving her a chance to stop. “Do you know what the TARDIS says about friendship?”

Clara rolled her eyes as she attempted to control her emotions. “How could I possibly know?”

“It’s okay, I didn’t know either. For hundreds of years we had travelled together and I didn’t know. She happened to have been able to talk at the time. She said, ‘Friendship is standing shoulder to shoulder in the face of life and death. Friendship is there when love's candle has burned and guttered. Friendship stays loyal when the enemy is at the gates. Friendship is never sacrificed, never surrendered.’ She said those words to me after I had betrayed her in the worst possible way.”

He walked toward the console and gave it a gentle caress. “Without a thought to her safety, I had piloted her around an exploding Time Station. She told me how much experiencing that explosion hurt her. But she said that was nothing compared to the betrayal she felt when she realised that I was willing to abandon her for the sake of a fleeting companion.”

There was a whinge and metallic groan that resounded through the TARDIS. The Doctor looked to the lights that were spinning above the Central Column. Clara huffed. “She was jealous.”

The Doctor shrugged. “Do you blame her? She and I had been together for nearly a millennium at that point and I was not only willing to sacrifice her life, but to abandon her as well. She was right to call me on it.”

The Doctor’s voice turned soft as he now faced Clara. “Did you honestly think you had to threaten me with the word ‘love’? I said that love is a promise. And I meant that. But the thing with promises is that they’re not bound by romance or friendship or any simple pudding-brained idea like that. They are bound by only one thing: your desire to keep them.”

He looked at Clara, hoping she would understand. But her expression remained unchanged. “I swore to you I’d come back for you. But I didn’t do that because I needed to prove something to you or because you asked. I did it because that promise existed long before I even had this body. I’m not one to let a little regeneration get in the way of a promise.”

He said that last part lightly and offered a little smile. Clara offered a sheepish smile in return. “So, will you always keep it?” 

The Doctor shook his head. “You already know the answer to that question or you wouldn’t ask it. But I have something to ask of you.”

She nodded. “Well, I’d say you deserve at least that much.”

“Danny Pink told you that you could spend five minutes a day missing him and the rest of…”

SMACK! The sound of Clara’s hand coming into contact with the Doctor’s cheek resounded through the console room. “Don’t you dare, Doctor. Don’t you _dare_ assume the right to lecture me about _anything_ Danny told me.”

The Doctor cupped his cheek, but let Clara have her say. He slowly backed away so he would not be slapped again if he continued to talk. “Clara, running from one adventure to the next. _That_ isn’t living. Believe me, I know.”

There was something in the Doctor’s expression that drained all the anger from Clara’s body. She was concerned. She took a seat and sighed. “All right. I’m listening.”

“In the first weeks or months after I ended…”

There was another metallic whinge. The Doctor looked at the Time Rotor and cleared his throat. “ _We_ ended the Time War, I did everything I could to escape what we had done. I had regenerated, but I didn’t even bother to look at myself in a mirror until after I met Rose. I just went from one disaster to the next. And each one was more dangerous than the time before. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was tempting – even challenging the Universe – to take me out of the picture. The Time War was over, my people were dead, and I would have gladly joined them.”

Clara’s eyes were going big and round again. “Doctor, don’t. Please. You don’t have to….”

He held up his hand and did not even bother to correct her on the size of her eyes. “I see the same thing in you. And I get it, I do. The more adventures you have, the more your mind is entertained and then you don’t have to think about what you lost, not only what you had, but all that potential… taken away too soon.”

Now he did dare to come and kneel down next to her. “P.E. asked for his five minutes. And the least I can do is make sure he gets it, for both your sakes.”

Clara wrapped her arms around the Doctor’s neck in a tight hug. He let her but could not resist to question. “Hiding your face?”

A wet giggle was her only reply. It was enough.


End file.
